We are requesting financial support for the 2002 Santa Cruz Meeting on Developmental Biology (SCDB). The meeting is designed as a stimulating meeting ground for approximately 50 speakers and 120 Poster presenters. The meeting offers ample opportunity for both formal and informal discussion among participants. The sessions are organized with substantial time for discussion after each session, and the speakers have been warned that they will not be allowed to run over into their discussion period; the lengthy discussion period was cited as one of the best features of the previous SCDB. Informal discussion will be fostered by the many social hours and poster sessions held each afternoon. The conference site has been arranged to bring the posters, lectures and meals into close proximity, resolving one of the few problems in past SCDB meetings. This year, the meeting will incorporate a significant number of talks from plant researchers and a growing number of talks at the interface of evolutionary and developmental biology. These talks are not segregated into their own sessions, but instead are integrated throughout the meeting to maximize interactions and emphasize interconnections. The 2002 Santa Cruz Meeting on Developmental Biology, to be held August 15-19, 2002, builds upon the success of previous meetings in this series (held in 1992, 1994, 1996, 2000). As before, the meeting will be held on the University of California, Santa Cruz campus in Northern California. The setting is very cost effective, and meeting logistics are simplified by the UCSC conference center. Travel from nearby airports is straightforward, but the meeting site is sufficiently isolated and pleasant to keep participants and speakers in residence at the meeting. Thus the SCDB combines many of the positive features of the Developmental Biology Gordon Conference (held in alternative years from the SCDB), but with significant advantages that have made it one of the favorite conferences of previous attendees.